Tag Archives: Discriminative Power

This is a story about positivity. No matter, how low you may feel the choice to be positive remains with you and only you. We may think that others make us feel bad but in reality, it’s us who chooses to feel bad.

There was a man, who saw and lived life only through his choices. His name was Almond. He was the kind of a guy everyone loved to hate. He remained cool and calm, happy and in good mood at all times. Whenever someone asked anything, his rely was always filled with positive thoughts and suggestions. When someone asked him about how he is feeling today, do you know what his reply would be. He would say, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”

Such happy character Almond was.

Almond was unique in many ways but the most important character, his positivity made others feel positive as well. Almond worked in the Sales Department as a Sales Manager. All the companies he worked in and left people would leave their respective jobs to follow him around from company to company. The only reason people followed Almond was his attitude, his attitude towards life which got reflected in his work as well. He was a natural motivator. When someone in his team had an off (bad) day, Almond rushed to make him see the brighter picture, the positive side of the negative event. This in itself is very difficult but when you learn the effect of positive choices, you get transform into the ball of positivity, which when rolled, spreads positivity across all directions.

One day one of Almond’s new employee, Gerard, approached him in his cabin while he was reading a book. “I don’t get it!” Gerard said in the frustrating voice. He continued, “No one can be positive forever. It is not natural. I have tried and tried but at some point I get crazily upset. How do you do it? How can you be positive at all times? Almond smiles at Gerard and said, “Positivity is not to be forced. It is a natural way of expressing one’s desire to be on top of any situation”. Unable to comprehend what Almond said, Gerard kept looking at his face thinking about the crazy words he is speaking.

Almond after a pause said, “Every morning, when I wake up. I open my eyes and say to myself, Almond; you have two choices today to spend your day. Do you want to be in a good and happy mood today or would you like to b e in a sad and unhappy state for rest of the day. At that point I choose the first option, to be happy and cheerful and exhilarated state”.

Almond continued, “When I feel the situation is bad and something terrible has happened, my inner self asks me again, Almond would you like to be a victim of the situation or would you like to learn from it. I choose to learn from the situation”

Pausing for a moment, with a smile on his face, Almond said, “If someone comes complaining to me, my inner self again gives me two choices, would you like to accept the individual’s complain and would you like to point out the positive side of it. I choose the latter”.

But Gerard was in such a grumpy and frustrated mood that he exclaimed in anger, “Yeah, right, it’s all good to say and listen but it’s not that easy as it sounds”.

Almond continued, “Gerard, life is a choice”. Differentiating between Inbox and Spam of an email, Almond said, “When a person is able to scrap all the noise from the sound, every situation transforms into choice. It is you who has to choose how to react in any given situation. Don’t think about results, think about the situation. It’s you who choose how people are going to affect your mood and feelings. It’s you who chooses to be in the good or bad mood. At the end, it is your and only your choice that decide your state of mind, it is your choice how you choose to live your life.

Gerard kept mum and left the office for that day and never returned back to office. Gerard opened his own small firm and started his new venture. For a long time Almond and Gerard did not meet. But Gerard often thought about Almond when he made choices about life instead of becoming a victim and reacting to it.

After a long period of time, Gerard heard from somewhere that Almond did an unthinkable, that he should have never done. Almond by that time became the Store Manager of a very good food chain. Almond forgot to secure the back door of the restaurant and was held on gun point by robbers.

Robbers forced him to reveal the security combination of the safe in which the whole month’s money was safely kept. Shaking with nervousness, the combination slipped from his mind and he was shot on the spot by the robbers who panicked before fleeing the scene. Fortunately, paramedics reached at the scene very quickly and he was rushed to the trauma centre. Almond was operated upon for a full complete day. His surgery went for 22 hours. Almond was shifted in the ICU and was discharged from the hospital after few weeks while the fragments of the bullets still remained in his body.

A year after the incident, Gerard found where Almond was and went to meet him to enquire about his health. Gerard upon meeting Almond asked, “How are you Almond” to which Almond replied, “If I were any better, I would be twins”.

Gerard mustered some courage to ask Almond about how he felt and what had gone through his mind as that incident happened.

Almond said, “At first, I was thinking, I should have secured the back door. Shouldn’t have left it open. Then when I was shot and I was lying down on the floor, my inner self cried out to me and asked me that Almond you still have two choices as usual. Would you choose to live or would you choose to die. As always, I chose to live”.

Gerard anxiously asked, “Almond were you not scared at all? Were you unconscious?”

Almond replied back saying, “The paramedics were brilliant. They came very quickly. They were continuously speaking to me and telling me that I was going to be fine. But at the time when I was transferred to the operating table in the trauma centre, I saw the real expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses. At that time I got really scared. I could very easily see in their eyes that I might not survive that I will die for sure. I knew I had to act swiftly and take corrective action”.

Gerard in excitement asked, “Almond, so what did you do? Tell me Almond, what did you actually do?”

Almond said, “Well, standing just near to my head, a very big nurse who was shouting questions at me, she suddenly asked if I am allergic to anything. Yes, I relied quickly and paused. The doctors and nurses waited for my reply…at that time I took deep breath remember my inner self and belief and yelled BULLETS. All doctors and Nurses actually laughed. Over their laughter, I told them, “I have chosen to live. Please operate me as if I am alive, not dead”. Gerard had tears in his eyes and couldn’t utter any words. He realized and understood that positive attitude does wonders not only in professional life but also at every moment of personal life too.

Almond lived, of course because of the magnificent skills of the doctors, but also due to his amazingly positive attitude towards life. This story is a very tiny attempt to guide you to understand and learn from Almond that every moment we have choices to live fully. Attitude after all is everything and positive attitude is the choice that always remains within you.

There always is, a decisive moment in one’s life where consciously or unconsciously we take action.

We are living in a world which begins with a run in marathon and end in one too. During our existence in this life, we go through uncountable moments that becomes are very expressions of our own selves. We start getting noticed by all based on it.

Certain actions, certain movements become our trade mark. We are judged and looked upon because of those repetitive moments that we have made a part of our daily routine.

Since, my childhood I was always looked as an introvert. No need for anyone and no support needed at all. There were many like me and there are many even still and they will continue to be there but are they actually introvert? In fact can anyone be an introvert?

There are times, when we want to be in the middle of a discussion, sometimes away from even a sound of a pin dropping on the floor in the quite atmosphere. There are even times when we create such atmosphere where people come and talk to us, listen to us, and ask about us. Knowingly or unknowingly, we mostly want to be someone who is not neglected but at the same time not over burdened with the pressure of society.

We always want to be balanced in every way. Be it any of those hundred characters that we play in as many hours in a single day. But at the end of the day, if we reflect back upon our day’s events, we can clearly see that our actions have created one-sided moments from which we always want to run away.

Do we know why is it that although we are determined to live a balanced life, still ends up in unbalanced events?

None of us have the truthful answer. We all have our manipulated ways to answer this question. When we are judged, we feel rush of emotions swirling through our body. We feel that lightning striking within our body giving us Goosebumps. We feel so energised looking at the person or group who is making comments about one’s existence that we for a moment forget our very own existence.

These rushes of emotions are not spontaneous. They have been swirling in us from long, they just gets connected to that event taking place and creates an unbalanced atmosphere. At any given point, no matter how hard one tries, these surge of emotions always start on an unbalanced equation leading the one further away from balance.

Isn’t it an experience that all of us had in past and continues to have it at all times of the day, even at present, reading these very words?

Precisely at the time when this surge starts within ourselves, at that every moment another surge starts, probably a bigger one that tries to control the emotional surge simultaneously but due to our tendency to be in the middle of an event as soon as the opportunity arises irrespective of its nature, we tend to ignore this larger surge helping the emotional surge in getting bigger and bigger, leaving the other surge working its way in a smaller way.

But the second surge never stops.

When the momentarily event is over, the emotional surge dies down and our concentration goes towards this smaller surge working its way, which tell us about the pros and cons of the passed event, we realise that there were things that could have been avoided, the outcome may not have been what it was. There was something else that I could have done.

Why such thoughts linger in our mind only after the event has taken place? Is it not possible to have these thoughts looked upon only at the time when the event is about to start? What stops us from having this intellect of decision making power at that very second when the first wave or emotions engulf our intellectual existence and fan our physical existence?

There are so many questions that our mind processes when we think about such simple yet magnificent thoughts and experiences that we go through each second.

Does it mean that we can actually stop events from taking place? Does it mean that we can actually change what is happening? Is it really possible to realise the power of creating & destroying and exhibiting it at the same time?

Can we really say out loud that we have the power to change?

Is there even a remote chance that listening to the second surge might give us peace and stops any event if not favourable to all from happening?

Each one of us goes through this phenomenon of being someone we think we are not, during a day’s life events. On the same night with sleepy eyes, we think over it again and again. Some of us during this phase of half-awake decide whether we will be a part of such events ever again.

Such powerful thoughts and knowing about this reality, this experience, we tend to start our new day with the same cycle of unbalanced equations, being part of unbalanced events. And again get tied down in the outcome of such events only to later realise, we have just repeated yesterday one more time.

We are the ones judging ourselves, we are the one’s looking up or down on ourselves, we are the ones pushing us to be a part of the unbalanced equation.

Every one of us is responsible and accountable to our own actions. No matter how prompted we will get, no matter how materialistically good or bad the event might be, it’s us who gets in the middle of such unbalanced life events. At that moment, no matter how emotionally unbalanced we are, we are making a conscious choice.

What is our true nature? What is our true existence? Who we really are? We know all the answers. It’s just at the time when we could have found our respective answers, we find ourselves riding the first wave of emotions leading us into the abyss of emotional turbulence away from looking at the light that might enlighten us with Truth.

It’s our life, it’s our body, it’s our thoughts, and it’s our existence. Let not allow them to linger in the wasteland of materialistic world rather carry them in our hands where ever we go to find out the truth about who we actually are.

The question here is….do we really think that we have time to do all this in today’s world? Well…we all know that we have already answered this question by now. It’s only a moment of letting that second surge overcome the first surge of emotions will make you realise the answer.

We Agree or disagree, that doesn’t matter as life will move on irrespectively but on what path…………it will always be a mystery!